Sustainability. What is it? When you think of sustainability, you may think of people like Jane Goodall or Greta Thunberg who are famous for their work as environmental activists. Or perhaps you may think of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which looked to tackle the environmental challenges that we face. As pointed out at the very beginning of our lecture by Xin Zhang, however, sustainability is a term that we often use a lot within our everyday lives, especially within a scientific setting, but may find it difficult to actually define. Well, when it was first used for forestry, based out of Germany back in 1713, it was used to represent the idea of “maintaining a balance between harvesting old trees and ensuring that there were enough young trees to replace them.”¹ As Xin and Matthew Houser pointed out, the term “sustainability” has grown much more complex. At the Rio+20 Summit in 2012, they stated that in order to be sustainable around the world, we would need to be:

“promoting sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth, creating greater opportunities for all, reducing inequalities, raising basic standards of living; fostering equitable social development and inclusion; and promoting integrated and sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems that supports inter alia economic social and human development while facilitating ecosystem conservation, regeneration and restoration and resilience in the face of new and emerging challenges”² – United Nations General Assembly

Is global sustainability really possible though? Is it realistic that we are going to become a sustainable society that works in conjunction with the environment? A large portion of our class was focused on just this, discussing whether or not being sustainable on a global scale was even a possibility. Some of the major arguments that were brought up looked at the fact that the way things are structured now from a societal perspective, it doesn’t seem likely. Specifically, some of the arguments that were made in relation to this were that there are things such as war, borders, lack of trust, societal norms, and possible scaling obstacles. All this together, it makes it seem like global sustainability is just a pipeline dream. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t hope for a better tomorrow. Two important pieces from this lecture that struck a chord with me during this lecture were: First - Xin was closing out the conversation and she ended it by stating that while these conversations may seem depressing, Xin and Matthew enjoy doing this because these conversations are how we get progress to occur. This took me aback for a moment and really got me thinking about just what needs to occur to have sustainability possible. The second was when Dr. Rose talked about the necessity for trust if we ever hope to get anywhere alongside the need for action.

These statements made me reflect back to the Brundtland Report and how they identified and recommended these key areas that needed to be addressed back in 1987 in order to become sustainable.³ It is reminiscent of the ideas taken in the recent Rio+20 Summit and the 2015 Paris Agreement. At the Rio+20 Summit back in 2012, the United Nations were able to identify 17 SDGs that serve to make global sustainability possible by the year 2030. At the Paris Agreement, 196 parties signed to combat climate change through individualized NDCs. The goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit carbon emissions in order to prevent the Earth from warming by two degrees Celsius within this century.

While these are great reports and agreements for nations to make, it appears that something is missing. If we take a look at the most recent update in 2020 regarding the progress made in accomplishing the SDGs from the Rio+20 Summit, we can see we are not set to accomplish our goals. This is what the UN Secretary-General had to say on the matter:

“As Member States recognized at the SDG Summit held last September, global efforts to date have been insufficient to deliver the change we need, jeopardizing the Agenda’s promise to current and future generations. Now, due to COVID-19, an unprecedented health, economic and social crisis is threatening lives and livelihoods, making the achievement of Goals even more challenging.” – UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

The same can be seen in regard to the progress of the Paris Agreement. Based on research on the current projections, it does not appear we will stay below the two-degree limit set forth in the agreement.⁵ Even just looking at the US, we can see that we have encountered a number of obstacles in sticking with the Paris Agreement such as falling flat on state-level commitments and President Trump withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement altogether.

Now you may be wondering how these are all connected to what was so striking in class. Well, it has to do with the fact that we concluded that we have the vision and goals in mind, and it seems like we understand that we have to work together in order to become sustainable. This can be seen from the Brundtland Report, the Rio+20 Summit, and the Paris Agreement. It is evident however between lectures, our readings, and real-life events, that we are unable to accomplish it right now. What I believe we lack is any real accountability in the measures we as nations have been setting forth. If we are to be able to tackle the environmental challenges that we face as a united front, we need to have accountability for the measures we take. There were no repercussions for the fact that we backed out of the Paris Agreement. There are no repercussions for the fact that deforestation has skyrocketed in Brazil. My point being, we have the vision that Ruth DeFries was referencing in her work.⁶ She showed that we have historically adapted and changed how we function to overcome our obstacles.⁶ Now we are trying to do it on the largest scale that we have ever seen before in order to combat problems that are in our near future, if not already feeling. In order to be successful in adapting our ways, we need to hold each other accountable. This will be the only way we can become globally sustainable.

My closing remark that I want you to ponder is this: Without accountability, if every nation in the world commits to becoming sustainable tomorrow, will it make one bit of difference?

References

1. Du Pisani, J. A. (2006). Sustainable development – historical roots of the concept. Environmental Sciences, 3(2), 83–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/15693430600688831
2. United Nations. (n.d.). Future we want - outcome document .:. sustainable development knowledge platform. United Nations. Retrieved October 9, 2021, from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/futurewewant.html.
3. World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987). Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. United Nations. (2020). Sustainable development goals report – united nations sustainable development. United Nations. Retrieved October 9, 2021, from https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/progress-report/.
5. Cornwall, W. (2020). The Paris climate pact is 5 years old. is it working? Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abg1263
6. DeFries, R. S. (2014). In The big ratchet: How humanity thrives in the face of natural crisis(pp. 1–33). essay, Basic Books.